As new global university rankings periodically come out, some among the leadership of higher education sector of the country find reasons to celebrate. The same happened last week. The performance of our institutions is nothing to be proud of. But that is not my point here. I want to reflect on the issue of ranking in and of itself. And what should we be assessing? Should we be interested in quality assurance and real improvement?

First, university rankings are increasingly being considered problematic. The for-profit parent companies that issue various rankings use criteria that relies heavily on 'reputation scores' - a vague, subjective metric that does not actually measure anything except perception or popularity. This means that an outstanding university that few people know about will never actually do well on that list. This beauty pageant-like approach is hardly how an institution of higher education should be assessed. Another major factor is citations per faculty, which means that........

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